


Sunburn

by Grazine



Category: Phandom, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Cute, DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, Fanfiction, Fluff, M/M, Phan Fluff, Phanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grazine/pseuds/Grazine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil catches a cold and asks Dan to play him something on the piano so he would feel better. It's the first song Dan ever played to him, 'Sunburn' by Muse.</p><p>This is the first ever fanfiction I wrote on English (which isn't my native language, so please excuse my mistakes) and I would really appreciate some thoughts on it. Thanks. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunburn

The moment Dan first realised his best friend was going to get a cold was when Phil sneezed into his coffee mug. And it wasn’t even light, it was a full-on sneeze that was definitely leading up to a cold.  
“You okay?” Dan asked, trying to repress the worrying overtone that had appeared in his voice.  
“Sure”, Phil answered Phil, awkwardly trying to clean Dan’s mug from his snot. Dan sighted, even though he couldn’t help smiling at the thought of how incredibly cute his friend was. 

A day later, at the exact same time, Phil was cuddling up in Dan’s bed, pressing his head into the pillow half sleeping, half awake. It was more than obvious that he had caught a cold.  
Dan himself was sitting on the edge of the bed, balancing two hot cups of coffee in one hand, while the other one rested on Phil’s shoulder.  
He took a moment just to look at him – look at his chest going up and down as he took a breath after another, the way some restive strands of hair stuck out, his reddened cheeks.  
“Phil?” he whispered eventually, bending over his body.  
“Huh?” His friend raised his head only to let it fall back into the pile of pillows again as he saw the look on Dan’s face.  
“How do you feel?”  
Phil shoved away the blanket and reached up to grab Dan’s sleeve. “I’ll be okay, Dan. Stop worrying, you’re being ridiculous.”  
He gave him a smile. Dan returned it, although he had to force his lips to do as he told them, because he still was worried and even Phil’s tries to calm him down couldn’t change that.  
Phil would always do that. Play it all down, act like everything was okay so Dan wouldn’t overthink it. Phil cared about Dan more than he cared about himself and Dan loved him for it, but it didn’t change the fact that Phil was ill and Dan wasn’t.  
Even Phil couldn’t deny that. No one could.  
“I made you coffee” Dan didn’t really know how he should act around his flatmate and that made the whole situation way more awkward then it had to be. But he was Dan Howell and he was an expert when it came to making a situation unnecessarily awkward.  
Phil took the mug out of Dan’s hands and took a sip. “Thanks, Dan.”  
“No problem”  
The two of them kept silent as Phil continued to take small sips of the hot liquid while Dan watched over him. But it was kind of a nice silence, a consensual silence.  
Dan had no clue how many time had passed since he had been entering the room, but eventually Phil said his name. “Dan?”  
“Right here”, the boy answered and stroked a strand of hair away from Phil’s forehead.  
“Could you play me something?” he asked quietly.  
“What?”  
“On the piano. Could you play something on the piano for me?”  
Dan swallowed. Sure, he had played the piano in front of Phil many times before, but he usually had time to prepare. Time to get into the song, to practise before he called Phil in to listen.  
His playing was always something he felt incredibly insecure about and he wouldn’t show anyone if he wasn’t completely happy with how the piece turned out.  
“What do you want me to play?” he asked, trying to hide his insecurity.  
Phil sat up, stretched his back and leaned back against the bed. “Do you know anything from Muse?”  
Of course he did. Muse was their favourite Band since Dan could remember. The first thing they bonded over. The one thing they’re friendship was built on, its foundation.  
“I think I could get 'Sunburn' together” he mumbled.  
Phil weakly nodded his head and Dan stood up only to sit back down in his butt chair, in front of the piano.  
He let out a last sigh before sliding his fingers over the keys. The felt familiar, smooth and heavy under his shaking fingertips.  
He let the song play behind his closed eyelids, tried to feel the notes, letting the music run through his veins, from his head through his arm up to his fingers, which he carefully placed on the keys.  
“I’ll start now” he whispered without being able to control the shaking in his voice.  
“Okay” Phil answered, giving him an encouraging smile.  
Dan applied pressure to the keyboard and he could hear the first notes. He played them again, and once again, until he felt confident enough to go on with the song.  
'Sunburn' was a fast but really intense, meaningful song and it had to be played with a lot of respect. Music had to be honoured to feel right and Dan had always felt music different than other people. He hadn’t only felt the sounds, the notes that were written on the paper. He felt the vibrations in his blood, he felt the thoughts a certain kind of music managed to put in his mind. Music needed to be understand because it could be played right, and Dan knew that.  
“That’s why it sounds so magical when you play it”, Phil would tell him after he had finished the last note of the song he had practised, “it’s because you know what the song wants to say and you allow it to say it”  
The first time Phil had told him that, Dan cried.  
The first time Phil had told him that, Dan had played 'Sunburn'.  
Dan knew the first bit didn’t sound as it should. It sounded forced and mechanic and Dan couldn’t get his fingers to stop shaking.  
But the memory of the first time he had played this one special song to Phil made it better. It made him confident. The memory he would always link to this song, the memory that managed to carry all the complex things it had to say.  
Dan could tell how the sound got more flowing, a smile sneaked onto his face as he felt how natural, how certain the cold material of the keys felt aw he glided across them.  
The song ended as fast as it had begun. Quiet set in.  
Dan wiped a single tear off his cheek.  
“Dan?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I love you so, so much.”


End file.
